The Future of Completed Cohort Fertility in Low Fertility Countries

Yen-hsin A. Cheng, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

This study aims to forecast the CTFR among recent cohorts of women across eight countries from Northern to Southern Europe (i.e., Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria, Switzerlnd, Greece, Spain, and Portugal.), using the behavioral Gompertz Model (Goldstein 2008) along with linear extrapolation and rate-freezing methods. Preliminary findings show that the Gompertz model and the linear extrapolation method offer very close forecasted CTFR values even for cohorts of women who are in their early 30s in 2007. The rate-freezing method tends to forecast the lowest CTFR for recent truncated cohorts. For the cohorts born between 1960 and 1975, all the three Southern European countries are expecting a declining CTFR. The three Western European countries are expecting a more stable CTFR around 1.5 to 1.6 children and about 2 children in Norway. In particular, completed fertility of recent cohorts of Danish women is showing an increasing trend toward replacement level.